Why i chose medicine over computer science.

i know a lot of people who like myself were choosing between computer science and medicine, and just wanted to share my thoughts to why I ultimately chose medicine!

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[keymot]

This is literally the dilemma of my life, now I regret getting high grades, I wish I didn’t have the choice between them and got forced into one

[dr.piyushswami]

I have been going through the same dilemma, between pursuing my medical career further or going into CS. Finally i am going to continue with my medical degree, and teach myself CS and the things I love about coding, maybe some online degree too, down the road. It's a relief to see other people go through these dilemmas too😅.

[thewelcomer]

I don't know too much about medicine but I'd like to give some advice based on the fact I'm studying CS and my sister is interested in eventually becoming a pediatrician. Here's some questions you should ask yourself if you want to go into CS or medicine:

CS and medicine:

Am I fascinated by learning every day and putting pieces of info together into some overarching puzzle of knowledge?
Do I enjoy spending hours looking through patient records/code and using critical thinking to solve a big mystery?
Am I ok with taking a problem home with me and spending all evening/night thinking about it?

Medicine-specific:
Am I ok making life and death choices and living with my failiures/mistakes?
Do I handle stressful situations well?
Am I generally extraverted?
Do I go out of my way to help people (not just holding the door for them, stuff like volunteering or showing up to your friend's game)
Do I spend a lot of time studying for classes? If not, am I ok with spending a lot of time studying?
Have I always wanted to do medicine or do I have an ambition to do medicine that'll get me through 11+ years of school?

CS-specific:
Does programming naturally click for me? (I feel like more for programming than medicine, natural talent does play a role. That doesn't mean you need to be naturally gifted to be a good software developer though)
Am I generally introverted?
Am I fine essentially interpreting and solving logic puzzles 40 hours a week for the rest of my life?
Am I fine with banging my head against a wall for 4 hours trying to find out why an algorithm isn't working only to find it was because of some extremely trivial mistake?
Do I get a great sense of pride and accomplishment from building something, especially if it's complex?
Do I study less than most, but study effectively and do well on my exams?
Am I ok with getting half of my education not from college, but from learning and building stuff outside of college? If so, am I prepared to spend 2-4 hours outside of classes and assignments each day teaching myself CS?
Am I ok with being in a very cyclical industry where I don't have nearly as much job security as doctors do?

My sister and I are pretty similar but I think what pushed me more towards CS was being introverted and honestly not being as interested in directly helping people purely for the joy of it, I instead get more enjoyment from building a really complex system that I only half understand and having it do really interesting things that help out potentially millions indirectly. CS also sort of comes naturally for me while I'm not really able to put in dozens of hours a day to study like my sister does. My sister has also wanted to be a pediatrician pretty much her entire life whereas I've never really wanted to be anything specific until now and I've explored pretty much every academic field I've ever been interested in including physics, engineering, medicine, economics, business, and finally CS. So if you are not firmly convicted in wanting to go into medicine, you may change your mind in school or become trapped in a lifestyle you don't really enjoy.

[lesnyalcala]

Medicine is broad and stable. Imagine being a radiologist. You get the best of both worlds!

[milachayromerocesar]

Man, you don't have idea how much how much have you helped me. I was in the same situation and I never thought the idea of study CS online. I'm really thankful for your ideas man. I wish the best with your decision ❤️

[adamnuqui]

I just came across your video cuz I’ve been having trouble but man i gotta say, your video was so incredibly well made and helped me gain so much more clarity. Thank you so much!

[toji]

For me, other jobs over computer science because thinking about doing the same thing in front of a computer i would probably get bored instead of doing nothing physical.

[NasriEdge]

thank you so much Arvind, i was exactly in the same situation, good luck bro

[ruthkokane]

I am 15 now
I will love to be a doctor and serve others but I also love coding
I just tried coding once in 7th
So, I decided to take computer science as the optional subject in 11th along with my neet preparation.
I hope I am doing right
I thought I was the only one confused between these two options 🤔

[iamhelina]

I'm here because I have no idea what to choose between computer science and nursing😭 (I'm not good at math).

[MrUtubeidiot]

Neat and crisp explanation of your choice of medicine over computer science. Best wishes!
On the side note, I like your editing 😜

[ishani]

Love the quote at 5:25 ! And the inspect tool LOLL

[fahmidamiah]

Like you, I have an interest in both Medicine and Computer Science and done both. It was great to hear your story :) wishing you the best.

[miakayuki]

I'm also considering shifting to medicine from com sci. But what I'm scared is blood, dead body, body parts, make some die because of me. Or make a mistake as a doctor because their life is in my hands so I think I'm might be with con sci but what my problem in com sci is that it's boring and make you sleep. I hope god should take me 😭 I feel so lost and useless

[julissapozo]

Thank you for sharing your interests! I'm so glad that I ran into this video because I have been debating whether to pursue medicine or computer science because both are interesting to me. I'm not sure if I should major in computer science or just minor in it? But thanks to your video I have a better idea of what I want to do. I feel like both of these fields are so different but they're able to compliment each other so well.

[cosmicgeo]

I’m really worried about choosing between medicine and technology. Mostly because of the debt. Yes, the salaries are high, and private practice pay can be higher. But you can also make a fortune by working at MAANG and other top tech companies. Then there’s malpractice insurance. Not sure what to choose and I have a few years left as an undergrad student….Both routes are attractive and tough.

[khaleddhaiban]

that's the exact problem I ran into six months ago, and here are some insights you can get from my experience.


After graduating from high school, I decided to study the degree I've always wanted... Medicine... The reason was pretty simple, I have loved medical subjects because they answered many of my questions, about how our body works as a system, the reason why something happens because of something else, the how and why behind our body's disease, physiological responses... etc.

After studying for one semester at the medical school, I'm thinking about switching to CS, but before explaining the why... I'd like to tell you about how I personally found medicine, so you better understand my case.

*Important intro*

I was full of enthusiasm when I started my medical studies, because after high school, I ended up graduating in the top ten students in my country. Such achievement made me confident that I will be able to learn CS besides medicine, and potentially get hired only with online courses.

When it came to choosing the degree, I was still holding that assumption and chose medicine, especially because of its status in my society, and you kinda look smart when you study it as it's a very competitive major in my city.

In the entrance exam of the medical school, I got the second highest mark among more than 2000 applicants (To be honest, the advantage of my English knowledge has helped a great deal). That has reinforced the assumption of me being able to keep up with learning coding besides studying medicine.

The big BUT here is:

I realized that working as a doctor isn't the thing I really want to do, I just loved the subjects, they were just engaging for me, but when it comes to medicine as a career... I found it not that sexy. Thus I swiched to computer science as I found it more suitable for me as a career and roughly the same in love and passion.

Well, there are absolutely careers which require a background in medicine and CS, such as bioinformatics amd advanced research roles, but these weren't available for me, and even if they'll be available someday, I am certain that a pure CS career is the best option for me, after opsessing with programming and careers during the semester break in the last two months.


The main point I aimed to get to, after all of this is:

"It's not only about how much you like studying a certain major, or how good you are initially at it... It's actually more about what you can do with your degree, knowledge, and skills. If the career following your degree isn't appealing to you, and you don't have that calling for it, it's very possible that you will lose your passion when facing tough challenges in the way, and when you lose your passion _or better to be called initial intrest_ ... You usually no longer be special, and if your aren''t special, you'll usually end up jobless... Or at least unhappy with your job"

That's it,

1- First determine what you would love to do (let's make it realistic and not to say traveling in space for instance), or at least know the tools and things you want to work on till you're dead.

2- Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, so you put yourself in the so called "winning game", the specialization in which you have some advantage.

3- Know what's possible, and don't treat exceptions as the absolute truth.

Finding such answers requires massive research, but I'll say that the book: So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport is currently the best place for you.


So, if you like working as a doctor, and helping people motivates you to work hard, and you think you have the capacity to study it... Good luck with it my friend, you don't need to worry about other career options, if you would like to work as a doctor, or maybe as a researcher if available for you, just give it the needed focused effort so you get what you want, because doctors usually have a clear and stable career.


But if you aren't sure of your choice, I think you shouldn't hurry in your decision and take your time discovering yourself, and see if you really fit in the medical career. I've certainly been in your shoes someday, and I assumed that I can do both gigs... But the fact is: when you trace two rabbits at the same time, you end up catching none of them.

I'm not a psychic to know whether you will choose medicine or CS, but what I'm certain of is that most people can't do both, except in degrees that extensively combine both fields, such as bioinformatics.


If you haven't yet decided what field to go for, this is probably due to two reasons:

1- You don't want to regret missing the opportunity of studying medicine, thus you chose it with the belief that you'll then learn CS out of college.

2- You overly consider the social status a degree can offer you.

In short, if you chose medicine for the first reason, I can refer that to a fallacy called Loss Aversion. Now I'll just give you this title to do your own research. If that's because of the second reason, I can tell you that doing the thing you love can not be replaced with status, this should be the last thing to consider when choosing a career, as it might cost you years of unfulfilling work.

That's all I could include in this comment, I still have more reasons why learning computer science outside of college isn't the optimal choice, even for engineers.

I hope that was helpful for you, I really tried to separate personal experience from general advice, feel free to ask any question about career choice especially between these two fields.

I'd like to thank this channel for putting such a topic into discussion, which has really encouraged me to type and edit this for around one hour :)

I can also give the resources I learned from to guide you in choosing your career, but for now, check the book So Good They Can't Ignore You and remember, don't trace two rabbits at once :).

[JesusChristTheOnlyTruth]

I am a CS graduate and now I want to study medicine! 😂

[MD-rwuh]

Here a 9 year experienced doctor. If you want/like medicine beacuse of the beautiful caritative side of medicine, the idea of "helping" others 😅, let me tell you, the health care system every where is just against all that ideal heavenly practice we dream about when we are super puppy studying medicine all full of expectations and unreal ideas of what we'll be doing as a physician in real life 😢😅😅.. been burnout, facing the real horrible world of treating just clients strad of "patients" have driven many doctor to leaving medicine, as me 🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️. I can do more for people within another field than being a doctor. Unless you would be a doctor working for free for everybody with the budget enough to pay every single thing that is needed to give the proper attention a sick person needs. Good Luck 🤞

[supreetsingh]

The classical asian dilemma man. Really appreciate that you are bringing this up. I am an MBBS grad getting into data science